White Paper. Comparative Management Cost Survey. Workload Weighting for Mid-range Storage Array Administrators

Transcription

1 89 Fifth Avenue, 7th Floor New York, NY White Paper Comparative Management Cost Survey Workload Weighting for Mid-range Storage Array Administrators February 23, 2009

2 Printed in the United States of America. Copyright 2009 Edison Group, Inc. New York. Edison Group offers no warranty either expressed or implied on the information contained herein and shall be held harmless for errors resulting from its use. All products are trademarks of their respective owners. First Publication: February 2009 Produced by: Craig Norris, Author; Barry Cohen, Editor-in-Chief

3 Table of Contents Executive Summary... 1 Introduction... 2 Objective... 2 Audience... 2 Contents of this Paper... 2 Background... 3 Methodology... 4 Research Results... 5 Respondents Overview... 5 Findings... 7 Conclusion... 14

4 Executive Summary According to a recent article in ComputerWorld 1 based on a sampling of attendees at the last Storage Networking World conference, storage projects remain a priority for IT despite worldwide economic problems. The reason is readily apparent: despite the struggling economy and chaos on Wall Street, the amount of critical data that must be securely stored continues to rise with no end in sight. Business organizations simply have no choice but to continue investing in storage solutions. Faced with this reality, companies find it all the more imperative to focus on the considerable administrative costs of managing burgeoning storage resources as an area in which savings might be realized. Choosing storage solutions that curtail or even reverse the rise of those costs can alleviate, at least, the unavoidable drain on the budget that storage entails. Using the results of two separate comparative studies assessing the weighted comparative time and efficiency with which various management tasks are performed using the software for administering mid-range storage arrays from HP, EMC, and NetApp, Edison Group found that: Organizations utilizing HP StorageWorks EVA can obtain a monetary workday savings 2 of 35 percent as compared to EMC CLARiiON when performing Provisioning, Data Protection, and Maintenance tasks. Organizations utilizing HP StorageWorks EVA can obtain a monetary workday savings of 49 percent as compared to NetApp when performing Provisioning, Data Protection through replication, and Maintenance tasks. When provisioning new arrays and configuring storage for use, HP StorageWorks EVA provides an 11 percent daily workload time saving over EMC CLARiiON and a 12 percent savings over NetApp FAS. When performing regular maintenance tasks, such as expanding current storage capacity and replacing failed components, HP StorageWorks EVA provides a 2 percent daily workload savings over EMC CLARiiON and a 13 percent daily workload savings over NetApp FAS. When performing data protection tasks, such as creating snapshots and clones, HP StorageWorks EVA provides a 23 percent workload savings over EMC CLARiiON, and 24 percent over NetApp Monetary Workday Savings or Workday Savings are the terms Edison uses to describe the value of an employee s daily work averaged over a year. Page 1

5 Introduction Objective This white paper informs readers about the time and cost savings, from a storage administrator's perspective, that can be realized from using StorageWorks EVA as compared to competing solutions from EMC and NetApp. Audience This paper will be of use to anyone responsible for choosing storage solutions for their organizations or for making administrative personnel decisions in the data center. Contents of this Paper This paper is presented in the following key sections: Introduction Describes the purpose and audience for the paper. Background Explains the concerns leading up to the production of the paper. Methodology Describes the methodology used in obtaining the information presented in the paper. Research Results Reports the study results and provides analysis of the impact the results have on the Total Cost of Ownership of StorageWorks EVA as compared to the competing solutions. Conclusions Presents the conclusions that Edison Group derives from the research done for the paper. Page 2

6 Background Representatives from HP StorageWorks asked Edison to develop and perform a series of interviews and surveys with storage administrators of mid-range SAN storage arrays from HP and its key competitors: NetApp and EMC. The study was designed to identify how much of their day a storage administrator spends on various tasks, the relative importance of these tasks, and the priorities of the administrators. The interviews were used to design the survey as well as to provide additional insight. After completing the surveys, Edison analyzed the results, created weighting factors, and developed this white paper to provide IT decision makers with the facts needed to make informed decisions in their storage administration choices. NOTE: In demonstrating specific areas where EVA ease of use can have significant impact on Storage Administrator workloads and thus Total Cost of Ownership, Edison applied the weighting factors determined by the survey to the findings of an earlier 2007 hands-on comparative TCO study. 3 3 TCO White Paper: EMC, NetApp, and HP Midrange Storage Arrays, 2007 Edison Group. Page 3

7 Methodology Edison Group obtained information regarding how storage managers spend their day and how much time they spend doing it through a series of preparatory interviews and online surveys. The interviews engaged the respondents in a conversation that can provide qualitative insights; the online surveys provided quantitative data and a larger sample. Thus, a combination of interviews and online surveys provided the best of both worlds. Edison performed interviews (spread out between storage administrators using HP, NetApp, EMC, and IBM) in order to collect qualitative insights and to use the information to aid in the development of survey questions that would yield the best results. The survey was designed to extract from respondents their estimation of the frequency with which tasks are performed. The survey was then followed up with additional interviews to tune the analysis for workload weighting. The weighting factors determined by the survey were then applied to the findings of an earlier 2007 hands-on comparative TCO study EMC, NetApp, and HP Midrange Storage Arrays which shows that, when performing the list of tasks, the HP EVA 70 percent less time than EMC and 89 percent less time than NetApp for performing a series of standard administrative tasks. Depending on the operation performed, the EVA demonstrated up to five times the management efficiency of EMC and NetApp. This white paper brings to bear the additional dimension of weighting to the tasks based on their frequency and importance, as well as how they fit into the relative priorities of storage administrators, in order to provide a more real-world measure of business value to be realized by using HP StorageWorks EVA. Page 4

8 Research Results This section reports the survey results and provides analysis of the impact these results have on the business value of StorageWorks EVA as compared to competing solutions. Respondents Overview The survey netted 30 respondents within organizations ranging from less than 10 employees to greater than 10,000, with over half falling in the mid-range between and with about 38 percent in the higher end. The total storage capacity each respondent was responsible for ranged from 3 4,000 Terabytes, with the preponderance falling between TB. How many employees are in your company? Answer Options Response Frequency <10 6.5% % % % 501-1, % 1,000-10, % >10, % Page 5

9 As might be expected from this sampling, over three-fourths of the respondents manage systems in addition to storage, though over half estimated their time spent managing storage at more than 50 percent and over 26 percent of them put it from 76 to 100 percent of their time. Are you responsible for managing systems besides storage? Answer Options Response Count Response Frequency Yes % No % About half the respondents are responsible for managing less than 15 arrays, though a full 55 percent manage more than that. A similar percentage split divides those using single-vendor from those using multiple-vendor arrays, with 39 percent managing a single-vendor storage environment. Page 6

10 Of the storage array vendors represented in the environments managed by the respondents, there were strong representations from HP, EMC, IBM, and NetApp, with EMC arrays used by the largest percentage at 34 percent. A good-sized representation 18 percent reported using arrays from other vendors, as well. Which vendor's arrays do you administer or manage? Answer Options Response Frequency EMC 34% HP 14% IBM 11% NetApp 23% Other 18% Findings This section presents the survey findings regarding the amount of time storage administrators spend on various responsibilities and/or tasks. The data represents responses for the following six categories of tasks: Provisioning - installation and configuration of new storage arrays, creation of disk groups, LUNS, identification and attachment of hosts, etc. Data protection replication, snapshots, backup, drive rebuilding. Maintenance and change configuration adding drives and expanding capacity, performance monitoring and tuning, moving data between arrays. Page 7

11 Problem solving diagnosis, troubleshooting, and addressing problems. Application-specific storage tasks tasks utilizing array features specific to Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle Database, etc. Overhead tasks not related to hands-on use of products, such as capacity planning, new projects, team and management meetings, and training. Frequency of Tasks Performed The following table shows the cumulative results for the tasks in all the categories. The darker green cells indicate the preponderant responses for each category. Bi- Never Daily Weekly Weekly Monthly Quarterly Annually Episodically Provisioning Data Protection Maintenance Problem Solving Application Specific Overhead Weighting Factors The frequency periods in the survey are not all equal; for example, daily tasks are by definition performed more often than annual tasks. The following table shows the share per task category of the total responses compared to the total number of responses. Total Response Count Frequency Share Provisioning % Data Protection % Maintenance % Problem Solving % Application Specific % Overhead % Total Instances 972 Page 8

12 These results must be adjusted to reflect the differences between frequency periods. The response periods were weighted by the frequency with which they occurred in the total survey, and the results were multiplied by the number of responses. (Tasks that were never performed were given the frequency weighting of zero.) The following table shows the instances for each task with this adjustment applied. (Once again, the darker green cells indicate the preponderant responses for each category.) Bi- Never Daily Weekly Weekly Monthly Quarterly Annually Episodically Provisioning Data Protection Maintenance Problem Solving Application Specific Overhead Total Instances Weighting Priority by Period Frequency When the period frequency weighting factor is applied to each category, the workload share is adjusted to: Total Response Count Frequency Share Provisioning % Data Protection % Maintenance % Problem Solving % Application Specific % Overhead % Total Instances 3779 Page 9

13 This results in a weighting factor for each task category as follows: Share by Response Weighted Share Provisioning 11% 14% Data Protection 17% 16% Maintenance 22% 27% Problem Solving 14% 17% Application Specific 22% 13% Overhead 14% 12% Storage Manager Priorities Another factor to consider in assessing the value of efficiency and time savings is the importance that storage managers assign to any particular task. In a 2007 Storage magazine survey, 4 respondents identified their top storage management priorities for the coming year. These priorities can be mapped to the Task Categories being used in this paper, as follows: Task Responses Edison Task Category Backup 39.10% Data Protection Adding capacity 22.20% Maintenance Archiving 20.70% Maintenance Disaster Recovery 18.80% Data Protection Data deduplication 15.70% Maintenance Replication 14.90% Data Protection Virtualization 13.40% Provisioning If the responses are totaled by task category, Data Protection tasks are clearly the number one priority: Data Protection Maintenance Provisioning 72.80% 58.60% 13.40% 4 Storage Outlook '08: Storage Managers' Priorities; Rich Castagna, Editor-in-chief Page 10

14 Clearly, any time saved from other tasks that can be devoted to the most important tasks increases in value. In addition, time saved performing those high-priority tasks will also ensure that those tasks can be performed at the highest levels of efficiency. For example, the sole Provisioning task identified in the Storage magazine article is Virtualization. With an HP StorageWorks EVA system, virtualized storage is a given all of the drives on the array are virtualized at system initialization. Technically, therefore, no time is spent addressing storage virtualization with EVA. Edison Group has been using workload weighting factors in comparative administrative cost studies for several years. By applying weighting factors, the time actually spent performing tasks can be measured against the time available to the administrator and the relative importance of the various tasks themselves. This approach factors in the business value reality that taking less time for one task category can make additional time available for other, potentially more important, activities. Applying Efficiency and Time Savings to Business Value In 2007, Edison Group conducted a comparative TCO study 5 of the software used for administrating storage arrays from EMC, HP, and NetApp, in order to test the premise that a user-friendly storage management interface, in conjunction with a virtualized array architecture, can lower administrative costs and dramatically improve administrator efficiency. The study determined that HP StorageWorks EVA offered considerable savings in time and steps over EMC and NetApp for accomplishing identical task categories. Those differences cannot be directly translated into workday and therefore cost of ownership savings. However, by utilizing the weighting factors determined in this paper, those cost savings can be applied. The tables shown on the following page illustrate the time savings measured for some of the task categories included in the earlier study. 5 TCO White Paper: EMC, NetApp, and HP Midrange Storage Arrays, 2007 Edison Group. Page 11

15 Time (seconds) from 2007 research HP EMC HP NetApp Provisioning % Difference (Competitor- HP)/Competitor) Workday Savings (Difference * Weighting Factor) 78% 90% 11% 12% Data Protection % Difference (Competitor- HP)/Competitor) Workday Savings (Difference * Weighting Factor) 13% 80% 2% 13% Maintenance % Difference (Competitor- HP)/Competitor) Workday Savings (Difference * Weighting Factor) 84% 89% 23% 24% Overall Total HP EMC HP NetApp Total for all tasks % Difference (Competitor- HP)/Competitor) Workday Savings (Difference * Weighting Factor) 70% 89% 35% 49% As an example of how this can be applied to cost savings, consider the following: The total workday savings of an organization using HP EVA as compared to EMC is 36 percent. When compared to NetApp, the savings are 50 percent. Using an average annual salary for storage administrators from SimplyHired.com of $69,000 as the monetary baseline, the formula for savings comparison is: Median Storage Administrator Salary * (Storage Administrator time savings) = HP vs. EMC = $69,000 *35% = $24,150 HP vs. NetApp = $69,000*49% = $33,810 Page 12

16 When these weighting factors are applied to the tasks Edison previously evaluated in order to measure the relative efficiency of the management tools for HP EVA, EMC CLARiiON, and NetApp FAS storage arrays, we find that: Organizations utilizing HP StorageWorks EVA can obtain a workday savings of $24,150 as compared to EMC CLARiiON when performing Provisioning, Data Protection, and Maintenance tasks. Organizations utilizing HP StorageWorks EVA can obtain a workday savings of $33,810 as compared to NetApp when performing Provisioning, Data Protection, and Maintenance tasks. When provisioning new arrays and configuring storage for use, HP StorageWorks EVA provides an 11 percent daily workload time saving over EMC CLARiiON and a 13 percent savings over NetApp FAS. When performing regular maintenance tasks such as expanding current storage capacity and replacing failed components, HP StorageWorks EVA provides a 2 percent daily workload savings over EMC CLARiiON and a 13 percent daily workload savings over NetApp FAS. When performing data protection tasks such as creating snapshots and clones, HP StorageWorks EVA provides a 23 percent workload savings over EMC CLARiiON, and 24 percent over NetApp. Page 13

17 Conclusion Edison Group research has established that the ability for companies to more readily manage the increasing rate at which change takes place in their data center environment is a major cost factor in operations. Where a virtualized storage array architecture is concerned, we have found that a user-friendly storage management interface can lower administrative costs and dramatically improve administrator efficiency. To illustrate the savings that can be found from using the easier to use HP StorageWorks EVA, we applied the weighting factors identified in this study to the results of a previous Edison Group study. The results showed that for a select group of tasks, an organization using HP EVA arrays could realize a workday savings of 35 percent over similar arrays from EMC and a remarkable 49 percent savings over similar arrays from NetApp. When the weighting factors determined in the preparation of this paper through interviews and surveys of storage administrators are applied to the time and efficiency findings presented in our earlier report, a formula to determine comparative cost savings can be arrived at. The weighting factors identified here can be applied to the whole gamut of storage administrator tasks, thereby helping organizations better identify areas for potential savings in their operations. 4AA2-4661ENW Page 14